AI is the butt of the joke

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Comedian Sabrina Jalees tells Business Insider she's been peeing her whole life. Recently, she wondered if that could be an economic opportunity.

Her "why-don't-we-pee-on-data-centers" business proposal never reached Barbara Corcoran or Kevin O'Leary. Instead, after trying the joke in her stand-up sets, Jalees pitched it to an ad agency.

Liquid Death and Garage Beer turned her gag into a viral ad campaign, featuring a chorus of people, including former NFLer Jason Kelce, proudly singing as they brought jars of urine, addressed to a data center, to a post office. The companies also sold an $18 pee jar.

It's part of a larger trend in comedy: As AI and data centers create tension, audiences are looking for comic relief. Business Insider spoke with five stand-up comedians, including Jalees, about how audiences respond to jokes about the technology.

A bit that consistently works, he said, is to pick out a well-dressed person in the crowd and tell the audience: "They look like they own a data center. Hey, you're the reason my electric bill is so high!"

Comedy usually works best when it comments on a shared experience, the stand-ups said. And AI's weirdness — its chatbot hallucinations, online slop, weird machine movements, and a creeping sense that the technology is showing up everywhere — is a familiar absurdity of modern life.

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"For topical, relatable humor, the setup is the shared experience that people already go into the room having," Austin Nasso, a New York-based standup and former Microsoft employee, said.